Felling a large tree

[Mike Buckley]

The tree in my next-door neighbor's yard was probably already in place on the property when the house was built in the 1950s. Though the tree was very large, old and beautiful, unfortunately it had died. So the owner had it cut down as a measure of safety, ensuring that it wouldn't fall beyond control and hurt property or people. Last weekend the upper branches of the tree were cut. Today's task was to fell the rest of the tree.


Cutting the wedge



Cutting the back side
The tree in this photo is still standing nearly in its original position. The wedge on the left side where the tree will fall has been removed and the cut on the right side is being made. The rope is taught. It is connected to a pulley in the middle of the yard and then to a truck on the sidewalk. The rope system ensures that the tree will fall safely to the desired spot once enough of the last cut on the right side is made.



The tree is falling.
Once the tree showed the first signs of falling, the man with the chain saw safely backed away. The rope is limp because the tree has begun to fall. No, it didn't fall on the house; instead, it fell precisely in the safest place in the yard exactly as planned.

[terrib]

I'm glad things went as planned. From what I know about felling trees, it looks like that guy had way too many obstacles around him in the event something went awry.

[Mike Buckley]

it looks like that guy had way too many obstacles around him in the event something went awry.

My photos don't show the poor planning involved in removing the large branches last weekend. Those branches were cut into lengths about 6 feet (2 meters) long before they were cut into the much smaller sections on the ground shown in these photos. When the longer sections fell to the ground, they leaned against the fence. That fence to the left of the area shown in these photos was badly damaged.

Having seen the results of the prior week's poor planning, I stayed at a very safe distance from the tree once the last cut was being made and the tree was about to fall.